What Did You Find To Be The Most Confusing Belief Of Jehovah's Witnesses? (page 7)

TresHappy

This would be a huge list if I really started...perhaps that Jesus is Michael the Archangel - I mean where'd they get that nonsense!

I am going to say some sharp things which will hurt and offend some. The most confusing doctrine of the Jehovah's Witnesses is that they are living in some important, pivotal time, that they are the crux of change. But many religions and especially destructive cults have a silly notion that some special Armageddon or Judgment Day of some sort is coming, soon!

I started thinking about this when I had some discussions in a science-fiction role-playing game forum. What shape would religions take in the future? The FUTURAMA cartoon, set in the year 3000 AD, jokingly mentions that the only religions left in America are Oprahism and Voodoo! But seriously, I tried to answer that question, wrote an article about it, by looking at how religions twist and turn and developed in the past. I had a rough "evolve-a-religion" scheme with dice-rolls to see how a religion turns out in the future. Does it change, fuse with something, get influenced by the sayings of some influential prophet, split geographically? What happens to the number of followers after each change? Then maybe after enough thousands of years you see strange new religions with funny names like the Dalai Islamists or the Jiu-Jitsu's for Jesus or the Puss'n'Buddhists (all mentioned in the spoof of Frank Herbert's DUNE, called DOON by Ellis Weiner and the National Lampoon).

My main contention was that RELIGIONS HAVE A SHELF-LIFE. No matter what the doctrine, it's always the same basic message: there were amazing epic mythic things that happened in the distant past, to ignorant shepherds, they rubbed shoulders with God on a daily basis and you don't! It's certain in the modern world that you live twice as long as ignorant shepherds 3,000 years ago, you've seen less war in your life, you're ten times more educated and certainly twenty times cleaner. But, guess what, God appeared to them and not to you because YOU'RE NOT PURE ENOUGH. That idea confuses, irritates and chafes.

This is the most confusing doctrine of the JWs and sadly all other religions. Members sitting in the pew of their particular temple get increasingly confused and resentful, an urge builds up to reset the religious calendar to the Year Zero so amazing miraculous things can happen in THEIR lives. So some prophet or leader engineers a split or schizm or radical change in the religion (or a fusion with some other religion's ideas) so every believer can get the "special" feeling the believers in the shelf-life past-date religions don't have. Most are careful to include customs and doctrines of the old religions as a "bridge", not a complete break, in order to lure converts. That's why Catholic cardinals wear Jewish yarmulkas on their heads -- ever notice that?

So 100 years ago this annoying little dot.com religious start-up called the Millenium Dawn (later called the JWs) started up and it was the same old story. After 1850 years with no new FAX or instructions from Jesus Christ, the founder said he received "new light" or something. He fiddled with Christian doctrine willy-nilly and the religion eventually developed an enviable oppressive bureaucracy you all know and love, and got followers. The cult, I think, won't survive because we are much more literate and better-documented today and the warty origins of the JWs will not pass into the mists of time like so many other religions; it is not documented solely by rabid believers. They can't lie and say their founder was great because we have the court records of the time proving he was defrauding people with "Miracle Wheat", etc.

So the JW lie is that the JWs are special and different, a new page has been turned in history, and a great Judgment Day is coming. That's because it's easier to have a religion saying, "Join us and be saved while others are burned in Hell." than a religion admitting that "Join us and you'll have pretty much the same life as all the non-believers in a modern Westernized country with no war and great medical care and the increased lifespan compared to the people of Biblical times and all the same civil-rights as you." But such doctrines of extreme incidents are VERY confusing.

You can tell I'm cynical about religions. I will always say to the ex-JW's who are reading that it's great you got out of the cult. Wonderful, I applaud your efforts or the help of your family and friends who convinced you to do so. But as a committed Atheist I don't think it's necessarily always the solution to bounce out of one religion only to hop into another. You have the added choice of Atheism to consider. We're pretty easy-going, we won't mire you in extensive doctrines or fragment into lots of sects debating about exactly HOW you're not supposed to believe in God, heheh. But if you want to toy with some religion because it's got a more appealing extreme-times philosophy or they have the best cell-phone coverage of all the religions, well I guess that's your right too.

RunningMan

Interesting comments, Draconian, but you won't find a lot of people around here offended by them.

And, Betweenworlds, I liked the comment about the resurrection. I can recall hearing comments such as:

"Well, three more people now have a chance at life." - after witnessing a baptism at a circuit assembly.

"Well, at least he now has a hope of a resurrection." - at the funeral of a person who was associated but never baptized.

On a similar vein, it never made sense to me that people who never heard the message (like a hermit in Tibet) would survive Armageddon, but the person down the street who got called on once and declined the mags, would be executed. It seemed so arbitrary. In fact, wouldn't it be better for Witnesses to not go from door to door? After all, if they preach to someone and they don't listen (and most don't), then that person dies. If they do not preach and the person never has a chance to hear, then that person lives. They would save way more people by staying home.

sandy

I could never understand why All Dogs DO NOT Go To Heaven.

Room 215

Another absurdity to the JW 144,000/Faithful & Discreet Slave dogma is the role that those 8,000 some-odd partakers have (or, more precisely, DON'T have) when it comes to administering the ``Lord's earthly interests." I know for a fact, as I'm acquainted with several such partakers in the hinterlands, that if any of them write to headquarters with suggestions on adjusting doctrine, they're told, politely at first, then with increasing severity if they persist, to ``mind their business, keep knocking on doors and let us here worry about such things."

Then too, when one of the partaking GB members dies, why are they never rplaced by some partaker out in the field, and why are so many Memorial matzoh-snackers passed over for important jobs which are given to ``Nethimin" Other Sheep types like Dean Songer, et al?

Big Tex

The Ezekiel book. That whole eyes in the wheel and the eagle's head on a man's body read like someone had dropped some serious acid.

minimus

Perhaps all the prophets were high.

Meg

When they say they have a loving brotherhood and then shun cirtain members who fail in some manor. I find that to be totaly disgusting. As well as telling you that you must not have no outside friends or you will not be pleaseing to God.

I agree with the above statement 100%.

I also was confused by the beards/facial hair thing. I personally love goaties.

The no memory of loved ones. I thought the point of being resaurected was to welcome back our dead loved ones?

Along the same lines as the above, I never understood how that worked if you had been married more then once, when you came back, who was your spouse??

Why it is ok to celebrate wedding anniversarys but not the anniversary of ones birth.

just to name a few...

minimus

What this about no memory of dead loved ones??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

ChristianObserver

One of the more confusing is the number of nonagenarians and centenarians that they must have:

Reasoning from the Scriptures, under title

Jehovah's Witnesses

Last days: They believe that we are living now, since 1914, in the last days of this wicked system of things; that some who saw the events of 1914 will also see the complete destruction of the present wicked world

What Did You Find To Be The Most Confusing Belief Of Jehovah's Witnesses?

Share this